‘This hurts!’ Columbus rapper’s mom lectures son’s killer during murder sentencing

Angel King had four years of grief and outrage to unleash on the man who killed her son and left her first grandchild fatherless.

The girlfriend of her son Jaylin Jaquan “Bart” Williams’ was pregnant,when he was gunned down during a botched robbery on Aug. 1, 2019. Now three years old, the daughter wants to know where her father is, she said.

“I wish I could see my son right now,” King told Jordan Jamal Seldon, after a Columbus jury convicted him of murder and other felonies in her son’s death. “I wish I could have seen my son when that baby was born, that looks just like him, and she will never get to know him, because of you and your selfishness!”

She lamented not only the death of her son, but of other sons lost to the gun violence that has plagued the city for the past few years.

“I don’t understand!” she yelled. “What’s wrong with you young Black men in Columbus, Georgia! Get a job! Go to school! ... Do something with your life! Is it worth this? To sit up in jail for what?”

For nothing, according to police and prosecutors, who said Seldon and two accomplices got no loot the night they tried to ambush Williams outside his midtown home. The shootout at 11 p.m. left the 21-year-old rapper shot through the chest.

His would-be robbers fled. Besides Seldon, police charged accomplices Christian Desean Patrick and Gerald Wayne Reed III in the murder case. Police also charged Reed’s then-girlfriend Anna Elizabeth Stecenko, who afterward helped Reed hide a gun.

Reed and Stecenko have pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Patrick’s charges are to be dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Seldon.

After about four hours of deliberation, the jury found Seldon guilty of murder, aggravated assault and using a gun to commit a felony, announcing the verdict about 11 a.m. Tuesday.

After hearing testimony from King and from Williams’ girlfriend Alexandria Smith, Judge John Martin sentenced Seldon to life with the possibility of parole.

That means Seldon, 24, will have to serve at least 30 years before he’s eligible for release, though he will get credit for the time he spent in jail awaiting trial. He was arrested in October 2020.

Martin said he was not “comfortable” with the option of giving Seldon life without parole when Seldon’s codefendants faced no similar consequences for their actions. Seldon’s youth and lack of any criminal record also had to be considered, the judge said.

The family’s pain

Trial testimony showed Reed, Seldon and Patrick conspired to rob Williams, with Reed telling Stecenko they wanted to “hit a lick,” street slang for a robbery.

Both Reed and Seldon were armed with handguns as they approached the home where Williams stood on the front porch. But Williams also had a gun and shot back at them, foiling their plan.

They had hoped Stecenko would lure Williams out of the house for them, but she refused to join in the scheme.

Prosecutor Lewis Lamb emphasized Tuesday that Williams’ death resulted from this avaricious plot, and that it was not the spontaneous result of a heated dispute or impulsive act.

Williams’ mother noted that, too.

“Because of your selfish actions, this is what it’s come to,” she told Seldon, later adding, “Stop being so narrow-minded! Wake up! This is not a game. This is life! This hurts! ... Your actions were careless, reckless, and it hurt a lot of people.”

Now her family is among the many who have lost children to violence, and must bear that burden, she added.

“I’m a part of that now,” she told Seldon. “Not only am I that mother who lost her son, but now I’ve got to go and comfort the next mother that lost her son to foolishness.”

The evidence

The gunfight outside his home left Williams dying on his porch, shot through the heart with a 9-millimeter bullet, authorities said.

Afterward Seldon and Patrick ran back to Patrick’s car on East Lindsey Drive and fled, according to Patrick’s testimony last week.

They abandoned Reed, who left his phone in Seldon’s car and began walking the neighborhood, asking residents to let him use their phone, police said.

The neighbors called 911, and officers questioned Reed that night before releasing him at Stecenko’s Fairview Drive home. She drove him back to Wallace Drive to collect a gun and camouflage jacket he had hidden in a vacant house there, she testified.

Stecenko and Reed disassembled the .45-caliber Glock and hid it in Harris County, where investigators later recovered the firearm. They also found Williams’ 9-millimeter pistol that jammed during the shootout.

But the 9-millimeter used to shoot Williams was never found, and Patrick’s testimony that Seldon was armed with the weapon was crucial to the prosecution’s case.

So, Lamb agreed to dismiss Patrick’s charges in exchange for his testimony, though Patrick admitted his role in the foiled robbery that led to Williams’ death.

The witnesses

Though Reed’s statements to police led to their unraveling the robbery scheme and arresting the suspects, Lamb never called Reed to testify, relying instead on Patrick and Stecenko to tell jurors what happened.

After Tuesday’s verdict, Lamb told the Ledger-Enquirer he never called Reed to the stand because he did not believe Reed was telling him the truth, and he did not want Reed lying to the jury.

Defense attorney Mike Garner maintained that Seldon was not there when the shooting happened, and that another man killed Williams.

When they pleaded guilty last year, Reed and Stecenko both agreed to testify in the trial if summoned. Here are their pleas:

• Stecenko, 24, pleaded guilty only to tampering with evidence, and faces 10 years in prison with six to serve.

• Reed, 25, pleaded to aggravated assault and using a gun to commit a felony. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

They are to be sentenced later. Patrick, who has spent four years in jail awaiting trial, is to be freed, said his attorney, Angela Dillon.

Lamb is the district attorney in Americus, Georgia, who was assigned the case because Columbus District Attorney Stacey Jackson in his former private practice represented Patrick, presenting a conflict of interest.